---
title: "Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian and Origen"
author: "Various Church Fathers"
translator: "S. Thelwall and others; A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.)"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 95 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/95/
cite: "Various Church Fathers, tr. S. Thelwall and others; A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.), Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian and Origen, section 95. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/95/"
---

# Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian and Origen

*Various Church Fathers, tr. S. Thelwall and others; A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.)*

Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian, and Origen's On First Principles and Against Celsus.

## 95. General Reply to Sundry of Marcion's Heresies · 4 of 8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/95/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/95/#p-N

[¶0] And grieves to quit it limb by limb: fixt time

[¶1] 135 Death lords it o’er the unhappy flesh; that so

[¶2] From light dust it may be renewed, and death

[¶3] Unfriendly fail at length, when flesh, released,

[¶4] Rises again. This will that victory be

[¶5] Supreme and long expected, wrought by Him,

[¶6] 140 The aye-to-be-revered, who did become

[¶7] True man; and by His Father’s virtue won:

[¶8] Who man’s redeemed limbs unto the heavens

[¶9] Hath raised, and richly opened access up

[¶10] Thither in hope, first to His nation; then

[¶11] 145 To those among all tongues in whom His work

[¶12] Is ever doing: Minister imbued

[¶13] With His Sire’s parent-care, seen by the eye

[¶14] Of the Illimitable, He performed,

[¶15] By suffering, His missions.

[¶16] What say now

[¶17] 150 The impious voices? what th’ abandoned crew?

[¶18] If He Himself, God the Creator’s self,

[¶19] Gave not the Law, He who from Egypt’s vale

[¶20] Paved in the waves a path, and freely gave

[¶21] The seats which He had said of old, why comes

[¶22] 155 He in that very People and that land

[¶23] Aforesaid? and why rather sought He not

[¶24] Some other peoples or some rival realms?

[¶25] Why, further, did He teach that, through the seers,

[¶26] (With Name foretold in full, yet not His own,)

[¶27] 160 He had been often sung of? Whence, again,

[¶28] Could He have issued baptism’s kindly gifts,

[¶29] Promised by some one else, as His own works?

[¶30] These gifts men who God’s mandates had transgressed,

[¶31] And hence were found polluted, longed for,

[¶32] 165 And begged a pardoning rescue from fierce death.

[¶33] Expected long, they came: but that to those

[¶34] Who recognised them when erst heard, and now

[¶35] Have recognised them, when in due time found,

[¶36] Christ’s true hand is to give them, this, with voice

[¶37] 170 Paternal, the Creator-Sire Himself

[¶38] Warns ever from eternity, and claims;

[¶39] And thus the work of virtue which He framed,

[¶40] And still frames, arms, and fosters, and doth now

[¶41] Victorious look down on and reclothe

[¶42] 175 With His own light, should with perennial praise

[¶43] Abide.

[¶44] What hath the Living Power done